ABSTRACT
Percy Fitzgerald was born in April 1830 at Fane Valley, Co. Louth, the youngest son of a prosperous Irish Roman Catholic family; he was educated at Stonyhurst, the Jesuit College in Lancashire, and Trinity College, Dublin. Fitzgerald’s father had made a fortune in the Caribbean before acquiring his estate at Fane Valley; in spite of his success and prospects at the Bar, young Percy was always closely drawn to literature and the arts, and indeed had no real need to make money. Fitzgerald’s own prose is very leisurely by standards: clear and easy to read but long-winded. Fitzgerald’s first published work, Dr Manutius, which he described as ‘a little romance founded on “Book-hunting”’, appeared in Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. Fitzgerald found that he could exploit his new position by travelling for enjoyment, writing on his observations abroad, and making profits out of his consequent earnings as well as covering his travel expenses.
